The man accused of killing a shopper inside a south-side grocery store told police he had snorted a line of meth and that he had to get away from the store because “everyone in the lot had guns.”

Jason Neal Cooper, 37, also told police that he couldn’t remember much about the Friday evening but believed that everyone in the store, including babies in strollers, had guns, according to a probable cause affidavit released Tuesday.

Cooper was charged Tuesday with murder, robbery resulting in bodily injury, armed robbery and resisting law enforcement in connection with the death of 43-year-old Carlos Castro.

Castro was found shot, stabbed and with an empty holster on his waist inside a south-side Kroger just after 8:30 p.m. Friday after witnesses say he refused to give Cooper his cellphone.

“I didn’t want to shoot the guy, but he pointed the gun at me, so I got a knife and stabbed him,” Cooper told a medic, according to court documents.

Investigators later found empty packaging for a kitchen knife inside the store at 4202 S. East St. that matched a knife found near Castro's body.

There is no surveillance footage of the incident — the store is under construction — but several witness accounts detailed in the probable cause affidavit shed light on the fatal exchange between Castro and the suspect in red, later identified as Cooper.

That is when the interaction turned deadly. One witness said she saw the man stab at Castro several times before shooting him, according to court documents. Once Castro was on the ground, the witness said the man put his foot on Castro's chest and shot him once more before exiting the store.

One witness said the man left the store smiling and firing two shots into the air. Shortly thereafter, police say Cooper approached a woman in a 2007 Toyota Camry.

“I’m sorry ma’am I need your car now,” the woman remembered him saying, according to the affidavit.

She got out of the car when she saw the gun, she told police, and the man drove away.

Around 8:40 p.m. a patrol officer saw a Toyota Camry disregard a traffic signal in the area near South Meridian Street and Thompson Road, the affidavit says. The officer followed the vehicle as it turned northbound on Meridian and activated his lights and siren, but the vehicle continued.

It was during the pursuit, which police say reached speeds of 80 mph, that the officer confirmed the vehicle he was following was the carjacked Camry.

The pursuit ended when the Camry crashed into two parked cars in the parking lot of a car dealership in the 8400 block of Ind. 31, at which time police say Cooper bailed out of the vehicle and began fleeing police on foot.

After leading police on a short foot pursuit, Cooper stopped running and put his hands in the air, police said.

“I did the right thing,” police say he yelled as he was apprehended. “I did the right thing.”

Officers at the scene said they did not ask him any questions about the shooting at Kroger but noticed a black handgun covered in blood on the car’s passenger seat, according to the affidavit.

A detective called to the scene described Cooper as “nervous, twitching, speaking fast and was unable to focus on one topic.”

An autopsy revealed Castro suffered two gunshot wounds and three stab wounds, according to court documents. Nearly all of the injuries would have been lethal, a pathologist told police.

Cooper is scheduled to make his initial appearance in Marion Superior Court at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.